2010 Easter Message

[GUMC Guam United Methodist Church]

Friends and Family:

 

I have been a pastor for more than 30 years and about 20 of those years I served in a local church setting. While my mind and eyes are into books teaching students, my heart will always be in the local church doing pastoral work.

 

It is true, that each local church has its own personality and character. However, there are features of goodness in all the local churches I have served that almost always I am tempted to stay and enjoy the people---and the place.  Of course, there are always small areas of challenges and exciting opportunities for growth for both the church and the pastor in any given ministry context.

 

Anyway, so much for that long introduction. My purpose in sending this gmail is to share in print my Easter message. This way, those who were not in attendance will have a chance to read and know what I have prepared that morning; and for those who miss something during my delivery, can compare with the printed one.  But missing my preaching on a Sunday morning means the adlibs, facial expressions, and the worship environment is also missed.

 

During the early morning service at the church yard 4th of April 2010, I had the sermon title, "I have seen the Lord"  taken from John 20: 1-18. I hope you like this one.

 

     Early on the first day of the week, while it is still dark, according to one of the reporters of the resurrection event, John, a woman by the name of Mary Magdalene, came to the tomb of Jesus.  Magdalene is not her last name.  It is an identification where she came from.  She was from the village of Magdala.

    Mary of Magdala's love for Jesus is not lip service:  not words of praise, platitude, support,  and adoration that come from the mouth but short on actual  delivering commitment to the cause of her friend, Jesus. She is one believer who is unafraid to stand  by him along with a very few others during the Good Friday execution where Jesus' captors and evil people put him to die on the cross. You might say that she is a consistent, faithful, and brave follower of the abandoned, seemingly powerless, Christ.  A woman---during her time?
    Part of her love and devotion to Jesus is seen in practical terms when she was looking for Jesus' dead body the morning following his burial, in a tomb.  Jesus is a friend, a fellow Jew and giving him a basic, decent burial is not too much to ask, is it? (it is like health insurance, all God's children should have one!). Mary Magdalene just couldn't wait to find out what happened to Jesus' body.  It is early morning, alone, a woman going to the cemetery?  Yes, the brave, faithful Mary is on her way to find out what happened to her friend, master, and lord.

    In the resurrection account recorded in the verses of John chapter 20, Jesus met Mary Magdalene.  And Mary saw Jesus.  She went back to her fellow disciples and says, "I have seen the Lord."  What do we do next?  What has become of us? Do we believe this?

    Easter message tells us this.  Jesus is first encoutered near the tomb, at the epicenter of defeat, and we hear Mary proclaiming triumph, "I have seen the Lord". Jesus rose to life as he both promised, predicted, and prophesied. It is in the DNA of Christians that we do not surrender easily; we don't believe that idols of death and destruction will ruin our life forever.

And so must live an Easter mentality.  Hopeful, trusting, and victorious.  And that is not easy.

    There are moments in our lives that we encounter Jesus first, often best, at the very place of our defeat, despair, and deep grief.  Where we struggle to believe, God is most present.  Where we have come to the end of our resources, there God breaks through in triumph.

    Our morning begins in a graveyard. It ends in a shout, "I have seen the Lord."  I have seen the Lord is a message we must hear and share to others this morning.  A message addressing our powerlessness, a message directed to our undeserved status, tainted with unbelief or practical belief in a god we want to cater to our whimsical and capricious use of god, but not really taking root at the depth of our being.  Often this practical and functional belief in a god finds an ally in various philosophies of utilitarian nature so that we believe in God only when it is useful and practical, sometimes with social benefits that go with the believing.  And then we put God away or hide God in the closet; and to remember to take God out again during special events or when there is a national crisis or family facing some trying moments.

 

Mary of Magdala's "I have seen the Lord" means an exciting possibility to be freed from human limitations to the point that debt and death no longer matter; it is to acquire a new paradigm of living; a new purpose for this new Easter life which is a life spent to serve the new humanity in Christ who came to give his life to both the godly and the ungodly.

 

In closing, I want to direct your attention to the lyrics of one of the more than 6,000 hymns Charles Wesly composed (brother to John). I believe the hymn, "O For a Thousand Tongues

to Sing" captures the essence of Easter---Christ rising from the dead---not for himself, not to save himself, not to deliver new life and new health for himself but for those he loved. The fifth stanza conveys a profoundly Easter message,

 

       "He speaks, and listening to his voice, new life the dead receive;

       the mournful, broken hearts rejoice, the humble poor believe."

   
Blessings to you all!

 

Pastor Fred

Eastertide

Guam United Methodist Church